So, 'all change' on the web TV series Shades OF Bad which has been honoured to have almost never left the world web TV series chart top twenty since its release mid last year. For this small UK series to up there in the chart complied by Roger Newcombe's team at We Love Soaps and Indie Series Network in the USA has been an honour and a surprise. To see the US site click this paragraph.

But, in true soap tradition, the cast must die, long live the cast. Replacement just happens a lot faster on the web, and a little odder. Maybe it is slower if you watch each episode by week and they come in coffee bite sizes, but add the minutes together and it all happens rather fast.

To recap when the two actresses sat in their kitchen and said let's make a show for the web, they never expected it to go this far. But Jean Heard had always produced and had just lowered the final curtain on a touring play called Mutton, which had run for seven years in various forms. She is also a co owner of IndyUK Films and has produced movies, and IndyUK owned kit ... Dragon and Scarlet Cameras etc.... However, this proposal morphed into another challenge that required it's own kit and staff and Shades Of Bad TV Channel was born.

If you look at the YouTube Channel now it is only just beginning to look like a TV Channel, but small companies like Jean's may be forging a change that only the future knows the answer to. As broadcast TV fast becomes a thing of the past, content ownership is the new buzz word.
Shades Of Bad TV groups three YouTube Channels with over 750,000 views, to the viewer they all appear on the channel.

It will be interesting to see if each needs their own Channel and needs to be grouped as playlists. The growth of social media is so fast this kind of research can only be done by small channel owners.
The playlists are clearly laid out on the Shades Of Bad TV Channel and it is worth a look just to study the work that she and her small team have put into it.

Eventually the Freight (DorisTV) and Bula Quo channels will return the honour by reflecting the lists there, but building the film output on Create Space and owning the unsold territorial distribution rights is also ongoing, and the novels of the work. The integration is one massive experiment of owning content.

Back to Shades OF Bad and the new Season. The first two seasons never strayed far from the kitchen and never left the house. It was a self imposed rule set, that each episode would be 3 to 5 minutes long, released weekly and had to end on a high.

The show has reached as high as number 2 in the Indie Series chart and Jean Heard has been voted Best Actress twice. Season three sees more dead bodies, a greater foray into crime and off to Norway and Barcelona. The current cast start to fall and in comes the new. They may have discovered a hidden acting talent and thrust a new male black actor into the market place with Derek Redmond. He is a World Champion and Olympian and plays Drek. Oliver Degnan who Jean used n IndyUK's first film The Usual Children, appears as Ben Manstead. The Bin Man who is dead. Manuel Martinez appears as the fixer in Barcelona, and then she can't get rid of him. And finally Nej Adamson, the pub quiz question actor ... who was the very first face on EastEnders ???? Nej..... appears. Quite a new cast as Shades OF Bad stretches out for a new season.